美国国家公共电台 NPR Combating Corruption: U.S. Customs And Border Protection Seeks Deep Reform

Combating Corruption 1: U.S. Customs And Border Protection Seeks Deep Reform

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The nation's largest law enforcement agency is trying to reform itself, The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency. The federal government spends more on border control and immigration enforcement than every other federal law enforcement agency combined.

Border Patrol is beset 3 by complaints of bribery 4 and excessive force within the ranks of its 56,000 agents. As NPR's John Burnett reports, there's progress. But much work remains 5.

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UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (Speaking Spanish).

JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE 6: A grove 7 of salt cedars 8 down by the Rio Grande in south Texas - a group of women and children from El Salvador fleeing gang violence has just crossed the river illegally. A Border Patrol agent follows them into the brush.

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UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (Speaking Spanish).

BURNETT: The kids are terrified of the uniformed officer.

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UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (Speaking Spanish).

BURNETT: A sweating mother collapses 9 in the tall grass in 90-degree heat.

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UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Do you want to get some water?

BURNETT: In a few minutes, a van arrives. The immigrants climb in. And they leave for the station, where they'll ask for asylum 10. On this day, the agents are good guys. They're rescuers. The exhausted 11 immigrants are grateful.

That's not always the case. Some agents of Customs and Border Protection or CBP have darker reputations. There have been frequent arrests for corruption and harsh criticism over the use of excessive force against migrants with no consequences. An independent review panel faulted the agency for its, quote, "broken disciplinary process."

Under new leadership, CBP is trying to bring about more transparency and accountability and train its personnel to de-escalate violent encounters. Agents who work on the border everyday say it's unlike any environment in American law enforcement. A patrol boat speeds along the International River between curtains of thick Carrizo cane 12.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Coming into the area - you guys need help?

BURNETT: Mullet flop 13 in the muddy water. And white egrets fly ahead. Agent Omar Puente says federal officers make easy targets.

OMAR PUENTE: All kinds of people throw rocks. Even little kids still in Pampers 14 - they see us, and they just lob rocks at us. And there's been areas in Weslaco where we were parked. And there would be, like - 10 guys show up to the bank, start throwing rocks. And then - the thing to do, I guess.

BURNETT: While Puente steers 15, Guillermo Mata scans the riverbank, shouldering an M4 assault rifle.

Agent Mata, how has use-of-force training changed in the years that you've been in the border patrol?

GUILLERMO MATA: I guess the main goal would be to try to remove yourself from the area first. That's what - personally the change that I've seen.

BURNETT: CBP asked the respected Police Executive Research Forum 16, a best-practices policy group, to look at 67 fatal shootings by border agents between 2010 and 2012. Its conclusion - some agents were firing at moving vehicles and rock throwers even though they posed no lethal 17 threat.

In an attempt to reduce shootings, CBP has handed down stricter rules on use of force. The agency has created interactive 18 scenarios 19 like this one at the national training center in Harpers Ferry, W. Va., that mimic 20 confrontations 21 with rock throwers shouting taunts 22 at agents. Every sworn officer is required to go through it.

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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Speaking Spanish).

UNIDENTIFIED AGENT: Hands up. Drop the rock. Drop it.

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BURNETT: The agent uses his Taser rather than his handgun. This type of training is an attempt to avoid incidents like the death of Sergio Hernandez Guereca. The Mexican teenager was standing 23 on the Juarez side of the international river when he was shot and killed by a federal agent who was in El Paso on the U.S. side.

The agent maintains the boy was throwing rocks, though cellphone video contradicts this account. Neither CBP nor the Justice Department decided 24 to take action against the officer. Guereca's mother, Maria Guadalupe Hernandez, sits in the living room of her rundown house in Juarez.

MARIA GUADALUPE HERNANDEZ: (Through interpreter) The Border Patrol has to change its policy of how they do things. My son didn't want to cross into the U.S. And when he was hit, he was hit in his back. I can't believe that this is allowed to happen - that a border patrol agent is allowed to kill someone on the Mexican side, and nothing happens.

BURNETT: The Supreme 25 Court will now decide whether Guereca's parents have a constitutional right to sue the federal officer in civil court. CBP has still not publicly explained this or other high-profile cross-border shootings that happened in the past. But the agency has made important changes going forward.

It now publishes data on use-of-force incidents. And it's encouraging. Since 2013, use of firearms has fallen 42 percent. And use of less lethal devices like Tasers and pepper balls has declined 38 percent. CBP created a new national use-of-force review board. So far, it has absolved 26 agents in all four shooting incidents that it's investigated.

And notably 27, the agency took the unprecedented 28 step of appointing an outsider, Assistant FBI Director Mark Morgan, to lead the Border Patrol, believing that real reform would not come from within.

JIM TOMSHECK: I think there's been some progress but not enough.

BURNETT: Jim Tomsheck headed up CBP Internal Affairs for eight years. The challenge, he says, is how to change the culture of an agency that believes deeply in its own exceptionalism.

TOMSHECK: In the 40 years I spent practicing law enforcement in three different agencies, it was my experience that the U.S. Border Patrol had a identity and a culture that was very different from the rest of U.S. law enforcement - that they were an agency that had not always been held accountable.

BURNETT: The Border Patrol traces some of its problems to the mandate 29 to double its size under President George W. Bush. Tomsheck says some agents were hired that never should've pinned on a badge.

Internal CBP records show that, on average, more than one agent has been arrested every month for the past 11 years, frequently for drug or human trafficking. That's a vastly higher rate than other federal police forces. CBP has tried to root out bad agents through aggressive polygraphing. But the Border Patrol union has resisted. Again, Jim Tomsheck.

TOMSHECK: We came to clearly understand that many of those persons who sought out positions with the Border Patrol and field operations were doing so solely 30 for the purpose of seeking out criminal opportunities and profit.

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BURNETT: South Padre is a popular barrier island on the lower Texas coast. It's dotted with cantinas and high-rise condos. This is where CBP is confronting what may be the latest lurid 31 example of corruption in its ranks.

Last year, anglers out for redfish made a grisly discovery. They spotted 32 the nude 33, headless body of a suspected drug smuggler 34 floating in the bay. The investigation 35 led to a safe owned by a Border Patrol agent. He has since been charged with capital murder. And inside that safe...

GUSTAVO GARZA: There was approximately a kilo of cocaine 36, $90,000 in cash. There's a ledger 37 that included the sale price for different quantities of cocaine.

BURNETT: And what else was in the safe?

GARZA: Border Patrol badge - commemorative badge belonging to Joel Luna and documents and records.

BURNETT: Gustavo Garza is the assistant district attorney in Cameron County. He's prosecuting 38 five men for capital murder in the gruesome case. Among them - border patrol Agent Joel Luna and his two brothers. Agent Luna has pleaded not guilty. The Luna case is a black eye for every officer on the force, says Harlingen agent-in-charge Henry Leo.

HENRY LEO: We don't want the public's confidence to be, you know, diminished, you know, if they see us, and they see Luna, right? But the good thing is I think we police each other. Like, in some of the cases that I know about personally, it's been other agents that report it and take the lead in bringing this person down.

BURNETT: CBP critics welcome the changes. And they want more. They point to highway checkpoints where motorists complain of racial profiling and ports of entry where agents are accused of roughing up people who cross. For U.S. Customs and Border Protection, deep reform is a work in progress. John Burnett, NPR News.